Nutrition, digestion, and the 'diagnosis' of IBS

I've just enjoyed a relaxing week off taking in the delights of Cornish coast line. The scenery was beautiful, we got lots of good walking done, but most of all I really enjoyed staying in a self-catering cottage. In the past I've found going on holidays can sometimes be quite a lot of hard work on the digestion. You end up eating foods you wouldn't normally at home, and the meal size are often bigger in restaurants that I'd choose to have if I was cooking for myself (and once the food is on my plate I'll happily eat it!).

Self-catering allowed me to bring me my vegetable juicer with me - juicing is one of those things I'd love to do more of, but don't always have enough time. But on holiday there's generally more time, so more juicing got done too! So after the week's holiday I felt both physically and mentally restored (although I must confess that I also enjoyed the occasional cream tea - when in Rome etc...)

So digestive problems can ruin a perfectly good holiday, and can make every day life a misery too. One of the most common complaints clients come to see me with is IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) to get some nutritional help where medical support has failed. It seems to be one of those terms that get used when no other explanation can be easily found for continued problems with constipation, diarrhoea, cramping and other unpleasant symptoms.

As it’s not the most glamorous subject to bring up, and won’t really lift the tone of any dinner party conversation, many have been putting up with the symptoms for a long time before deciding to seek help. When clients come to see me, they complain about getting bored with the narrow range of ‘safe’ foods they feel they are able to eat, and for many, their symptoms have also put some serious constraints on their social life.

One such client came to see me a few months ago. She had been putting up with constipation, cramps and loose stools for over 6 years – often having to make the dash for the loo at very short notice. By this point she wasn’t really keen to go out at all, let alone enjoy a shopping trip with friends – she daren’t risk it.

She was feeling constantly tired and run down and was wondering if she was getting all the necessary nutrients from the limited range of foods she felt safe to eat. Her weight had also been slowly creeping up over the years, and she found it difficult to shed the extra pounds.

Our first priority was to see what was lurking in her gut that was causing all the problems – we ran a stool test and found a parasite. She also had very low friendly bacteria – friendly bacteria help protect the gut against intruders amongst other things. They also help digest foods, and boost the immune system. No wonder she’d been complaining about always catching every cold going.

We managed to get rid of the parasite with specific herbs and built up her colonies of friendly bacteria with some supplements. At the same time we started slowly broadening the ‘safe’ foods list and designing a whole new and more varied way of eating. The first priority was breakfast – like many other busy professionals, my client had been skipping breakfast as she wasn’t prioritising it and thought she couldn’t spare the time. What a huge difference that and other small adjustments to her diet made – she no longer had the huge cravings she had had for chocolate cookies!

Now, three month’s down the line – running for the loo is no longer an issue – her gut is totally normal and as an added bonus, there have been some not so sneaky changes in her weight as well, this time downwards rather than upwards.

Snow in two countries!

March ended up being the busiest month so far this year. Maybe it was because Easter was so early, or maybe it was just because I had so many interesting projects on the go all at once. I held a workshop for mums and mums to be at a brand new (and very lovely) members only spa in Putney called Cupcakemum. There are more workshops to come during the spring on weaning and pregnancy nutrition specifically, and I'm also looking forward to sampling their spa facilities.

For Easter we decided to have a little break and booked a B&B in North Norfolk for a couple of nights. For a while now it has been my dream to own a barn conversion when I grow up, so I was excited to find a B&B in a recently converted barn. And I wasn't disappointed. The barn itself was gorgeous, our bedroom probably bigger than our lounge with a lovely roll top bath, and the breakfast was just simply fabulous. I guess I would go an about the food, it being one of my big passions in life, but it's so refreshing to get something a bit different from the cheap sausages and greasy bacon that often make up the traditional cooked breakfast. Instead we got fresh berries and fruit with yoghurt and muesli, followed by homemade wholemeal bread, warm croissants, homemade jams, cold cuts and some lovely smelly French cheeses. So some healthy bits combined with a few treats, and about thousand times more tasty than the basic English breakfast. The owners were absolutely lovely too, and very helpful in recommending places to see and which pubs offered best food. I would highly recommend them! We nearly got snowed in on Easter Monday and the country side looked very idyllic covered in about an inch of snow.

Then it was off to Finland and a bit more snow the following week. I'd been asked to do some lecturing at a natural health institute for trainee reflexologists and art therapists in the fundamentals of nutritional therapy. Great chance to visit the family and do some work at the same time. I love lecturing and we ended up having great lively conversations about how difficult it is to know what foods are actually good for you because of marketing and advertising messages that are often just there to sell the products rather than looking out for our health.

So here we are now in April, and the next big thing on my list is going to be re-launching my web-site. I've been working on some new content to make the site more useful and informative, and it's finally nearly there. Watch this space!

Welcome to my nutrition and health blog!

Welcome to my new blog. I’m a nutritional therapist and I’m passionate about everything to do with food and health and more specifically how the two affect each other.

Before taking the plunge and training in nutrition, I worked for 10 years in the City as a sales executive for a large asset management house. Travelling, airplane food and long days were the norm. Much of the time I felt exhausted and had endless colds that never seemed to completely shift. Often it was a case of just surviving from one day to the next rather than bouncing out of the bed full of energy, ready to face a new day.

I wish I could say that I had a moment of enlightenment and my life changed for the better overnight when I discovered more about what I should and shouldn’t be eating. In reality the process was somewhat slower. As I started to feel better and my energy levels began to pick up, I realised I wanted to make a career out of nutrition.

Once qualified, I started practicing in the City and Canary Wharf area helping busy professionals who also wanted to regain control over their health and well-being. My intention with this column is to share many of my insights about nutrition, well-being and energy levels and give some fairly down-to-earth tips for tweaking your diet into a healthier direction.

So what is nutrition all about? If you were to believe what’s on TV, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s all about bowel movements and exotic superfoods. Unfortunately the reality is not as simple as gulping litres of the newest super juice for optimum health and radiance.

Don’t be alarmed though. I’m not advocating everyone to start sprouting their own seeds and ditching all their favourite comfort foods all at once. To start with, just look at what your daily diet consists of. Be honest with yourself by including all the little snacks and nibbles in between the meals too.

Now consider this little fact: your body is made purely of the foods that you eat. Then look at your food diary and see how inspired, or not, you feel about a body made of the ingredients in front of you. This is not a guilt trip, just some food for thought. And who knows, next time when you are deciding whether to get a burger or a salad for lunch, maybe the vegetables look slightly more enticing than before.